Deadly Deceit

By Don Lasseter

The chilling true crime story of a man willing to do whatever it takes to live life on his lavish terms—including murder his own parents.

Gunned Down

After years of hard work, Brian and Jeannie Legg had earned a well-deserved life of leisure in their picture-perfect Phoenix mansion. Until their troubled son showed up with a need for cash—and a thirst for murder . . . 

Two Bodies

David Legg was an obsessive control freak and an army deserter. After fathering an illegitimate child, he wooed and wed a trusting young woman—only to destroy his marriage with lies and infidelities. But his deceptions were far from over . . . 

A Savage Son

In June of 1996, Jeannie and Brian were found shot to death, their bodies sitting next to each other on their living room loveseat. Jeannie’s expensive ring and the couple’s credit cards were missing. Meanwhile, David, the prime suspect, was living it up in Hawaii with his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, draining his dead parents’ savings through ATMs. After a long and costly chase this remorseless killer faced a jury of his peers in 2000, and was locked behind bars for life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780786027910

Don Lasseter

Don Lasseter has written five true crime books for Pinnacle, plus sixteen magazine articles that were reprinted in Pinnacle's anthology books about murders. In addition to being a crime writer, Mr. Lasseter is a WWII historian who frequently lectures on the subject in schools, at service clubs, and for veteran's groups. He accompanies his talks with slide packages entitled "WWII, Then and Now," consisting of photos he took while actually retracing most major battles in Western Europe and in the South Pacific. Taking black and white combat photos with him, Mr. Lasseter laboriously searched for the exact spots on which the photographers stood, and shot the same scenes as they look today. He accumulated over 1500 such pictures associated with various battles including the Normandy invasion, Battle of the Bulge, crossing the Rhine, taking Berlin, and other major engagements. A native Californian, Mr. Lasseter resides in Orange County. He has served as guest lecturer in criminology classes at California State University, Fullerton. Hollywood history is Mr. Lasseter's third major interest. His personal library includes an extensive collection of movie books, and he takes pride in being able to name hundreds of old character actors whose faces are often seen in classic films. One day, Lasseter says, he will write books, both fiction and non-fiction, about the golden era of film production and the people involved. If you would like more information about his books or his interests in WWII or Old Hollywood, please feel free to write him at 1215 S. Beach Blvd. #323, PMB, Anaheim, CA 92804.

Book preview

1

Visit from a Killer

Nothing in their imaginations, or nightmares, could have been more horrific to Jeannie and Brian Legg. They recoiled in disbelieving shock, eyes wide and mouths open, stunned and bewildered by the assailant who waved a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun in their faces.

Seated side by side on a blue-and-red–plaid love seat in the family room of their spacious home, the couple, ages fifty-six and fifty-two, had been enjoying a warm spring evening watching television. Casually dressed, Jeannie wore a navy blue short-sleeved blouse and red-plaid shorts, which resembled the upholstery’s color scheme. Brian, leaning gently against her left shoulder, also attired himself for the June weather of Phoenix, Arizona, in tan Bermuda shorts and a coral-beige–plaid sport shirt. Tired after a day of shopping and a family dinner, both had slipped off their shoes and had left them lying on the floor close to their bare feet.

Neither Brian nor Jeannie could have conceived the possibility of being violated in this manner. Nor did they grasp the reality of a life-threatening crisis. The overt signals of intention to murder them made no sense at all.

Without any hint of mercy, though, the gun wielder aimed the muzzle toward the right side of Jeannie Legg’s head, at nearly point-blank range, and pulled the trigger twice.

Horrified and outraged, Brian started to lunge upward, when he heard another blast from the semiautomatic. A bullet glanced off a magazine lying on a glass-topped end table next to him, tore through a potted plant, and disappeared into the wall. Still in the split-second process of rising, Brian didn’t make it, because the pistol struck him hard on the right temple and thudded against his forehead, just above the left eye. Dazed, he sank back onto the couch in a sitting position. A fourth detonation ended Brian’s life with a bullet into his temple.

Just to make certain that neither of the victims would survive, the killer delivered coup de grace shots into both of their heads.

Then the plunder began. An expensive, sparkling solitaire-diamond ring, along with a gold wedding band, was pulled from the limp third finger of Jeannie’s left hand. With the speed of a hungry scavenger, greedy claws emptied Brian’s pockets, taking his wallet and credit cards. Ransacking drawers in other rooms, the thief snatched checkbooks and more credit cards.

Returning to the pair of dead victims, the killer chose for some reason to cover the gruesome work with blankets dragged from an adjacent master bedroom. First a blue-and-pink-flowered comforter was stretched over their legs and laps; then a thick quilt concealed their upper bodies. As blood seeped through the two layers, a gray-striped white blanket was settled over the victims’ heads. Two yards of hemp twine was peeled from a roll and used to lash down the improvised shrouds. In addition, the cold-blooded assassin used great care in closing windows, drapes, shutters, and switching off every light inside the house.

Jeannie and Brian Legg would repose in the hot, silent, dark room for almost six days before finally being discovered.

2

Did They Know They Were Going to Die?

Tightening knots of tension twisted inside George Price’s (pseudonym) stomach like a hangman’s noose as he tried, for what seemed like the hundredth time, to telephone his mother and stepfather. Usually, the former U.S. Air Force captain, now an executive in a technology firm, had no trouble reaching them on a weekly basis, and he had last connected by telephone on Saturday morning, June 8, 1996. It had been a fun chat. A friend of Price’s, planning to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday, had asked George and his wife if they could teach him to do the cha-cha. They had laughed and said they didn’t know that dance, but perhaps George’s stepfather, Brian, did.

Sure, Brian had said, with his usual boisterous laugh. I’ll be glad to show you when we get together next weekend for Father’s Day.

Now, with the date rapidly approaching, George wanted to arrange details of the family gathering. He had called Brian and Jeannie Legg’s residential line repeatedly, beginning on Tuesday, but reached no one. Several more attempts to make contact through their home business number at least allowed him to leave messages on an answering machine. But they had not responded. Never before had his mom or stepfather failed to return telephone calls; usually, they got back within a matter of hours. And any planned trips were always preceded by advance notification to the offspring.

It did nothing to soothe his anxiety when George called a few hotels his parents might patronize, only to hit more dead ends. Inquiries to other relatives met equally disappointing failure.

Separated from them by about 115 miles, the distance between his Tucson home and the Phoenix suburb where Brian and Jeannie lived, Price thought about making the trip just to satisfy himself that nothing disastrous had happened. First, though, he decided to telephone a cousin, Joe Matise, who lived in a neighborhood not far from the Leggs’ upscale home.

Joe, George said, trying to hide the deep concern in his voice, I can’t reach Mom and Dad. Could you do me a big favor and drive over there to see if they are okay? Matise readily agreed to see what he could find out. In less than two hours, he called back to say he had gone over to the house on 14th Street, rang the bell, knocked loudly, and walked all around it. But no one appeared to be home.

For two more days, George continued attempts to contact his parents, still without success. At last, on Saturday, June 15, Price, with his wife Diana (pseudonym), drove northwest on Interstate 10 for nearly two hours. Strained with anxiety, he steered into a tract of expensive homes, custom built in the preceding two years. The modern development covered a low slope of dry, rocky desert terrain set against a backdrop of rugged mountains, ten miles outside of Phoenix. Called Ahwatukee, probably from an ancient Native American name meaning land on the other side of the hill, the community included a string of real estate developments. Each cluster of houses bore picturesque names, such as Desert View, Paradise Valley, and Camelback, which described a humpback mountain near the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC).

On that June afternoon, with the clear sky scorched by desert sun, George and his wife still held out hope their trip would have a happy ending. After turning into the short cul-de-sac of 14th Street at 1:30 P.M., George parked in the driveway situated on an expansive corner lot. He and Diana had been there many times, and they thought Brian and Jeannie had chosen well when they bought the place in the previous year. The tract featured spacious lots and gorgeous homes, many with swimming pools. Xerophilous landscaping, with dry, rocky ground cover and desert plants, would need little watering or maintenance. The backdrop of ragged, boulder-strewn, purple hills fit perfectly with the ancient geographic ambience of Arizona, marred only by several distant communications towers on top of the ridge.

Emerging from the car, George and his wife looked for some signs of life, but they found only eerie, empty silence. Nothing about the two-story, Spanish-style sandy beige structure indicated catastrophic events. No broken windows. No signs of forced entry. Oddly, though, the bulb was illuminated in a lamp fixture on the garage exterior. Brian would never allow that to happen in the daytime.

A sense of doom hovered over the worried couple.

Repeating the same steps taken by Matise on Thursday, George and Diana walked under the towering entry arch, knocked, rang the doorbell several times, and yelled his parents’ names. Price considered using the spare house key he had brought along, but some deep, fearful intuition blocked him from doing so. Attempts to peer through giant arched windows proved futile, since interior drapes and blinds obscured any possible view. This alarmed George, as he knew the Leggs preferred plenty of light and ventilation.

Using his key to a gate next to the garage, George and Diana entered the backyard. They turned near a sparkling swimming pool and skirted the barbecue pit Brian and Jeannie had built. Under a roofed patio, they cupped hands at the sides of their foreheads in futile attempts to peer through windows. Only one glass pane at the back offered the slightest of views inside, and Diana could barely see blankets on a love seat. She told George that it looked like someone might be asleep under the comforter. That only heightened their fear.

Back at the front entry, George used his cell phone to call Joe Matise and asked him to come over. Later explaining it, George said, I had a suspicion something had happened, and I wanted Joe there. I contemplated calling the police, but I wanted him there first. Since Matise already had made the inspection on Thursday, Price reasoned, we wanted to make sure that things looked as they did when he walked around the house.

While they waited for Joe’s arrival, events of the past skipped through George’s mind in a montage, like in a music video. His mother, Palma Jean, better known as Jeannie, had given birth to three children with her first husband. A divorce ended that union. Not long after George’s seventh birthday, Jeannie married Brian Legg, an officer in the U.S. Air Force. She delivered a fourth child, David, giving Brian a son of his own. Home, at that time, had been several places in Illinois and in Michigan. After the three older kids matured into independent adults, and young David started high school, Brian retired from the military. He, Jeannie, and David relocated to San Ramon, California, then to a country club home near Danville, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Both parents had dabbled with entrepreneurial efforts. David had met a young woman with whom he worked, and taken her as his bride.

By 1995, Brian and Jeannie decided to move from California to the dry, warm Arizona environment. Brian had tackled a part-time second career as head of the family planning division at the Gila River Indian Health Services (IHS). Jeannie turned one room of the new home into an office, where she ran a physician’s recruitment service.

Other more troubling images blighted George’s mental movie. While the marriage of Brian and Jeannie Legg provided them with apparent happiness, they had struggled with financial security. Several other family problems had created a certain amount of strain. David had found multiple ways to embarrass his parents with strange behavior before marrying his girlfriend, Alicia LaFlesh, and joining the army. Shortly after George’s young half brother had left for basic training, Brian Legg had suffered a heart attack and had undergone triple coronary bypass surgery.

Still, as the eldest male sibling, George always enjoyed the close relationship with his mother and her husband. He seldom let more than a few days pass without speaking to them, either by telephone or with a personal visit. Relationships with his sisters had been sporadic, with one of them choosing to have little contact with her family. He hadn’t seen his younger half brother, David, since Thanksgiving the previous year, during a celebration of the holiday and David’s birthday.

Joe Matise’s arrival put an end to George’s reverie. The cousin skidded to a halt at the curb and joined his relatives. After a short discussion, he said, Give me the key. I’ll go in and check it out.

As soon as Joe entered the dark house, he immediately had to control the reflexive urge to throw up. An overpowering stench of rotting flesh left him breathless. Before two full minutes had passed, he staggered back outside, with an agitated expression twisting his face. The odor also reached George’s nostrils. Even Diana, out in the driveway, could detect it. Tears filled the eyes of all three people. Matise implored George and Diana, Don’t go in the house. Choking back his own emotions, Joe added, Your parents are dead!

A few minutes of overwhelming emotion wracked the trio. George finally used his cell phone to call 911. The sequence of people arriving amazed him. He later spoke of it: Well, I remember the first thing was the newspeople showed up. Following that was the fire people. Then, after that, were the police.

Fire department personnel entered the house before anyone else. Neither George, nor Joe, nor Diana went inside with them. Paramedics, who are trained to cope with the odor of human decay, located the bodies of Brian and Jeannie Legg, who had died in a sitting position on a love seat, shot to death, and covered with blankets. Their remains, decomposing in the smothering heat, had been there at least five or six days.

Phoenix police officers arrived soon afterward. Sheriff’s coroners showed up to perform a cursory examination of the deceased couple and make the official pronouncement of death.

One of the coroner’s technicians peeled back the gray-striped white blanket to reveal the victims’ heads. The killer had shot the woman three times, once above the right ear, another at the hairline, and the final blast above her eyebrow. Two lethal bullets had entered the male victim’s head, one in the forehead and the second near his temple.

George Price controlled his emotions enough to identify the couple as his mother and stepfather.

No doubt remained that they had met their savage deaths at the hands of someone else. It had not been a murder-suicide. So the attending officers and specialists left everything intact, pending the arrival of detectives.

Later speaking of the horror, Joe Matise said, When I first walked in, I thought it was a suicide. There was no sign of a struggle. He would later change his opinion after learning of the multiple gunshot wounds. Pondering the horror, he turned philosophical. They were sitting side by side. . . . I wonder now, did they know they were going to die? Did they know who was going to kill them?

The crime scene remained under investigation through the night into the next day, Sunday, the sixteenth day of June. Happy Father’s Day.

3

Trail of Greed

Detective Ronald Jones arrived at the murder scene Saturday afternoon, at about four o’clock, along with Detectives Bob Mills and Ken Hansen. Jones had been an integral part of the three-man team, members of the Phoenix Police Department’s (PPD) Homicide Unit, for nearly three years. When called out to crime scenes, the trio rotated duty as case agent, meaning taking on responsibility for overseeing most aspects of the investigation. He later explained, One time you’ll get the case, one time you’ll do the scene, and one time you’ll fill in, based on the complexity of the case. They divided the work equitably, including witness interviews, searching for evidence, keeping records, or tagging along with the case agent to assist him. For this double killing, it would be Bob Mills’s turn to be the case agent.

Tall and lean, Ron Jones brought to mind cowboy actors from old movies in which Gary Cooper or Randolph Scott tracked the bad guys and brought them to justice. His deep-set, intense brown eyes, confident expression, and calm demeanor fit this image perfectly. When he was deep in thought, creases appeared on Jones’s forehead, and the dimple in his chin seemed even more pronounced. Graying, neatly trimmed hair, middle-parted and combed back, gave him an aura of respectable maturity.

A twenty-one-year veteran of the department, Jones had joined the force in 1975. He had excelled in the fourteen-week academy and graduated with honors. The first field assignment as a uniformed patrolman took him to the Squaw Peak Precinct, where he roamed the eastern-central portion of the city for two years. Superior performance led to an assignment as a training officer, showing new recruits the ropes, from 1978 to 1980, in the west side of town, called the Maryvale Precinct. The next eight years, Jones motored throughout the region as a solo traffic officer. He often found himself conducting security measures at special events, protecting dignitaries, or pulling over speeders and DUI offenders. In 1988, Jones shed the uniform to become a plainclothes detective. For several years, he investigated missing persons, assaults, and domestic violence. In 1993, he reached his goal to join the homicide squad.

When Jones arrived at the Leggs’ home, a pair of patrol cars occupied space at the curbs near the driveway. Yellow crime-scene tape stretched all the way across the concrete pavement and the front yard. Jones parked his unmarked vehicle, climbed out, and admired the awesome two-story structure, with red-tiled roof, several gables, and three giant arches at the front. The peaceful atmosphere seemed inconsistent with what Jones knew waited inside for him.

A lieutenant already at the scene briefed the three detectives, repeating details provided by the uniformed officer who had originally responded. As the trio entered the house, they passed a staircase to their left, walked through a hallway toward the back, and glanced at another short passage leading to a master bedroom. Just before they entered the family room, the detectives noticed a mirror mounted on the back wall over a fireplace. Its grisly reflection enabled them to see the bodies of Brian and Jeannie Legg still seated in deathly repose on the love seat, covered by blankets. Someone had peeled back a portion of the gray-striped shroud to reveal only their heads. The room reeked with the odor of decomposition, and each of the detectives struggled to control gagging impulses.

Inside the family room, an officer pointed out lengths of twine someone had looped and knotted to hold the covers in place. An astonishing amount of blood had seeped through all three blankets. With the heavily stained shrouds removed, Jones and a criminalist took on the gruesome task of examining clothing on the bodies and looking for identification papers.

To experienced sleuths, small details can reveal important information. Jones and Hansen made copious notes recording the fact that the deceased male sat with his hips at the very front of the love seat, his feet drawn back underneath in contact with fabric. This indicated the victim’s probable attempt to rise and stand, perhaps to battle the killer or to protect the woman, just before bullets took his life away. The female’s more relaxed posture, with her hips farther back in the seat and her knees at a greater than ninety-degree angle, indicated no attempt to stand up, fight, or flee. She most likely had died first.

George Price had said the victims were his mother and stepfather, but detectives needed concrete proof. The search, though, yielded no supporting documents. Later describing it in his typical laconic cop-speak, Jones said, I became aware that identification of the two victims was missing, and that brought up a need for additional follow-up investigation. The inside-out back pockets of the male victim’s walking shorts made it clear that someone had taken his wallet. The woman’s purse had obviously been emptied of valuables. No driver’s licenses, credit cards, or other personal documents could be found. This turn of events suggested a possible scenario—perhaps a burglary turned violent and culminating in tragic murder. For Jones, the missing documents left a big question mark. Commenting on the crucial need for these items, he related them to the tried-and-true methodology employed by homicide detectives across the nation. Adults leave history. It’s a tool of an investigator. People create a history of themselves through financial records and personal records. This history can often illuminate a path leading to valuable clues in identifying the killer.

While Ken Hansen took dozens of crime scene photographs, case agent Bob Mills conducted interviews of George Price, his wife, and his cousin Joe Matise. Price told Mills of two second-story rooms used by Brian and Jeannie as their offices. Jeannie had started a business called Physician Placement Incorporated and conducted operations from her office. Brian used his room to work part-time for the IHS.

Hoping they might find other cards—either debit, credit, membership—or any plastic belonging to the dead couple, Jones and Hansen climbed the stairs to continue searching. As the designated crime scene processor, Hansen looked through files and drawers, while Jones, as helper, drew rough sketches of their observations and began a numerical list of everything collected. They located a variety of receipts containing credit card numbers, jotted down the information, and placed each item into an evidence bag. From this data, the team would be able to contact the issuing banks to see if any of the cards had been used within the past few days.

On the lower floor, crime scene technicians scoured the house for clues. Fingerprint expert Joseph Silva and trainee Nancy Ferrera dusted multiple surfaces with black powder and began lifting latent prints. She bagged an empty Pepsi can for more extensive scrutiny in the crime lab. On tile floors in hallways and the kitchen, they used an electrostatic dust print lifter. Hansen later described it. It’s called an EDPL. They place a piece of Mylar plastic on the floor and then electro-charge it. It is an attempt to pick up any foot or shoe print impressions.

The searchers found broken candle holders, shattered glass, a cracked vase, and a spool of binding twine on the bottom shelf of an entertainment center. In a hallway dirty-clothes hamper, one of the investigators discovered latex rubber kitchen gloves, with possible bloodstains on them. One officer searched the kitchen and even opened the dishwasher, where he saw water glasses, silverware, cooking utensils, and four plates, all clean—nothing unusual.

George Price had mentioned to Mills that his mother usually wore an expensive diamond ring, more than three carats, given to her by Brian as a present for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. A quick check of her hands revealed that the ring and a wedding band were missing! When Jones and Hansen heard this, they made a point of searching throughout the house for the jewelry. The killer had evidently wrenched both rings from her dead hand and counted them among the loot taken.

While detectives and crime scene personnel initially labored at the Legg home, another man who would play a key role in the unfolding drama sat at home watching television with his wife. Glenn McCormick had been with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for six years. The former professional football player still looked like he could strap on pads and line up with any team. Standing six-five and weighing in at nearly 250 muscular pounds, with thick dark hair and brown eyes, McCormick wore glasses that gave him the perfect image of Clark Kent. Some would later think he bore a close resemblance to actor Brandon Routh, who would play the dual role of Kent and the Man of Steel in the 2006 film Superman Returns.

Retrospectively discussing the case, McCormick said, At that time, our homicide bureau had a rotation system. Whenever a homicide occurred, the DCA (deputy county attorney) would be called out to the scene by the investigating agency. From the nine available prosecutors, it was McCormick’s turn to stand by on weekend duty. He received the call from the Phoenix Police Department late Saturday afternoon, along with directions to the Legg home in Ahwatukee. When I arrived there, I went into the PPD mobile command center, essentially a recreational vehicle shell containing an emergency office setup. Detectives briefed me on what had been discovered, after which I was given a tour of the scene inside the home.

McCormick didn’t know it yet, but he had begun a project that would extend over the next four years.

As soon as the dinner hour had passed, Detective Ron Jones walked outside and began knocking on doors to canvass neighbors. He wanted to find out what friends or acquaintances might know about the Leggs, or if anything suspicious had been noticed within the last week. Jones’s two hours of inquiries produced nothing useful, and he returned to the home’s interior.

By this time, George Price had composed himself enough to answer more questions from Detective Bob Mills. Among other queries, Mills asked Price the names, addresses, and phone numbers of other family members. (This is an automatic element in murder probes. Key pieces of the puzzle are often discovered by interviewing as many people from the family tree as possible, as well as their close friends and business colleagues.) The distraught son gave the names of his two sisters, and his half brother, David. One of the sisters, he said, lived in Tennessee, and the other was an officer in the air force. But he couldn’t pin down David Legg’s current address. The youngest sibling had left to serve in the U.S. Army shortly after being married in February 1992. Since then, there had been limited communication between Price and his half brother, and their last time together had been the previous Thanksgiving. George said he thought David had been recently assigned to Fort Bliss, Texas.

Curious, Detective Jones recalled, A family member’s whereabouts were unknown. We were told this person was potentially in Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army post in Texas. . . . I started following that.

Using a phone in the mobile command vehicle parked in the driveway, Jones began a series of inquiries. First he decided to see if he could find out more concerning the whereabouts of David Legg. Making contact with the military provost, Jones learned some basic information. I verified the actual name, date of birth, Social Security number of [Specialist David Legg], the person I was looking for. They knew he was supposed to be on the base, but could not find him.

Putting that issue on a back burner, Jones continued his probes by telephone, even though the midnight hour had passed. I made numerous calls throughout the credit card system. At the American Express headquarters, I spoke with a supervisor, explained the reason for my calls, and was given information as to the use of two cards. I was told that cards had been used on June tenth and June eleventh. One of the charges had been made in Hawaii. Jones noted a possibility that the killer had either fled across the Pacific, or the card had been mailed to a confederate on the Islands.

No different from what ordinary citizens experience when trying to get information from large corporations, Jones found himself in a maze of bureaucracy. Still, as a law enforcement officer, he managed a few shortcuts. Having connected with a supervisor at American Express, he learned more about charges made to Brian’s credit card. It had been used for three major purchases, one being from Delta Airlines on June tenth. A second expenditure turned up with Dollar Rent A Car in Hawaii, and one more with a gift shop in Hawaii.

Another call to the airline company would have to wait for regular business hours. Jones considered trying some other numbers, where the charges had been made, but decided to wait. I did not want to call Hawaii, because I didn’t want to alert anyone on that side as to the cards being used. We had no information as to who was using them. Such calls, Jones indicated, might have the undesired result of tipping off the person making these expenditures, which could cause the hot trail to grow cold.

Back inside the home, Jones joined Hansen to explore every room. He studied numerous photos, many of them displayed on walls. With the help of George Price, the detective made entries in his notebook, spelling out identification of people in the pictures, including Brian and Jeannie, George, his two sisters, and David Legg, pictured with a young woman.

In addition to the calls made from their mobile command vehicle, Jones picked up telephones on Brian and Jeannie’s desks. I did last-number redials for each one of the house phones, which captures the last outgoing calls. I also collected the answering-machine tapes. Most of the recorded incoming calls had been from George Price, trying to find out if his mother and stepfather were okay.

Coroner’s technicians waited until case agent Mills concluded searching for clues around the bodies, then placed the deceased couple on gurneys to be loaded into a waiting van. They would be transported to a facility for autopsies, with special emphasis on recovering all or part of the lethal bullets.

After removal of Brian and Jeannie’s bodies, the detectives continued searching for any clues inside the Leggs’ home. Ken Hansen later spoke of it. A bullet fragment was found on the family room floor, behind the love seat that the victims were seated on. The location suggested it had possibly pierced one of the victims’ heads. And then there was also a bullet found underneath the carpeting in the master bedroom, which is immediately adjacent to the west side of the family room. It had passed through a wall and embedded itself in the carpet.

In an attempt to trace the path of the slug found in the bedroom, Jones and Hansen went into the family room and examined the stem of a potted plant that had been pierced. A hole in the Sheetrock wall next to it indicated the bullet’s flight. By inserting a long, slim wooden rod through both holes, they determined the path of a bullet, which appeared to have glanced off a magazine lying on a glass-topped end table near Brian’s body. Like an arrow, the rod pointed directly to the stray bullet, which wound up in the bedroom carpet. Hansen aimed his camera at the reconstruction of an errant shot from the murder weapon.

Other evidence collected by Mills, Hansen, and Jones amounted to very little. They bagged and tagged a roll of twine, latex rubber gloves, the shroud blankets, some photos, and a stack of documents. No revealing forensic clues turned up. All three men realized that a long and difficult road of investigation lay ahead.

4

This Diamond Ring

Five days before the horrific discovery of two bodies in an Ahwatukee neighborhood, a transaction took place just a few miles away.

Monday, June 10, dawned bright, clear, and warm in the Phoenix area. A clean-cut young man, wearing a polo shirt and shorts, glanced at a page he had torn from a Yellow Pages directory and walked into a shop on 48th Street. By his side, an attractive, dark-haired young woman stayed close.

The proprietor, Warren Williams, greeted them and asked how he could be of assistance. The youth asked if Williams was interested in buying a nice diamond. Of course, Williams replied. That’s our business.

Reaching into his pocket, the customer extracted a ring, on which was mounted an obviously expensive solitary gem, and handed it over.

Williams scrutinized the diamond and said, "Well, normally a stone this size, I’ve got to pull it out of the mounting because if I have to do the grading on it, it’s the most accurate way. If I don’t remove it, then, obviously, if there’s any leeway as